It has been a year since my wife and I had traveled to Antigua to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Lots has changed in that year in our lives. After Antigua we’ve been dealing with twelve months of life’s challenges and turmoils including the recent deaths of both of my parents. As I’m writing this, my mind has been turning to the time we spent in Antigua as I think about the need to get away for some time to let my mind heal. I think the time we spent in Antigua is what I need most from a vacation now – peace, quiet, relaxation and my wife at my side.

This trip last year was all about taking it easy. We picked the country on account of a seat sale and the ability to have an overnight stopover in Toronto to visit with my sister. Right after we booked our airline tickets, I almost instantly found this beautiful rental property. Perched high above Falmouth Harbour in the south of the island it checked all of our boxes – it was private, had an amazing view and a pool. It was our slice of heaven for a week.

Speaking of that pool… I spent a large portion of the week there looking out over the water and occasionally enjoying a morning refreshment.

We had almost no planned agenda for this trip and that suited us perfectly. One afternoon to shake things up, we took a short drive down to Falmouth Harbour for some beach exploring.

Many times here I have shown pictures of writing my dogs’ names in the sand, a tradition that always brings a smile to my face. When I wrote Chloe’s name here, I wasn’t aware that this would be the last time I would while she was alive. When we left for Antigua, we knew she was struggling and nearing the end of her more than 16 year life. After we returned, we only had a week with her before a tumour became too much for her to bear. She was the best dog.

One item we had pre-booked before visiting that we were looking forward to was a cooking class in St. John’s. A lovely group of folks from Oregon and Nevada were our fellow participants and we had a grand time preparing our meal under the tutelage of a chef in her own home.

And what a home it was. Overlooking the ocean, we took up residence on the expansive patio for our finished meal of garlic/cilantro marinated salmon, rice and beans, coconut shrimp, all washed down with rum punch.

When I think of Antigua, my mind immediately goes to rum. As chance would have it, just below our rental property was the island’s only gin distillery. Owned by David, the son of the woman who rented us the cabin, we spent a good portion of an afternoon chatting with him and sampling his amazing gins. Luckily the walk back up the hill was short as we sampled generously the spirits themselves and then how they worked in a variety of cocktails.

I kept the theme of cocktails running throughout our visit including a take on a mojito using the local rum and at my wife’s suggestion, using some of the syrup from a jar of spiced peaches we had picked up.

I also made some rum punches one evening which paired very well with the pool, crunchy fried pig skins and the setting sun giving way to a sky full of stars.

And thanks to David, his pastis with his own homemade pink lemonade was the drink of the evening one other night.

I like to think my wife and I bring at least one thing home from our travels. From Portugal, it was a love of tinned seafood, from Amsterdam it was (oddly) the joy of mojitos, and on this trip it was the wonder of changing up a mimosa with passion fruit juice…. we are never going back to OJ again!

The last of our planned activities was one of the most fun things I got to do on my travels in 2023. My wife planned a sea scooter snorkelling adventure for us in Freeman’s Bay. Here we are just off the Pillars of Hercules near the mouth of English Harbour.

We saw so much sea life while snorkelling. The water was beautifully clear and the sea scooter let you keep your mind on what you were seeing underwater rather than having to think about avoiding drowning. While everything was awe inspiring to view, getting a number of close up experiences with the turtles will be one of my favourite memories from the day.

On our last night we had what was the highlight of the trip. Our hosts invited us down to their house for some snacks and drinks. The previous day they had bailed us out of a very serious situation. Backing our rental car down the steep rocky driveway into our property, I came within a very thin tree of driving the car and me over a cliff to certain serious injury if not worse. With that thin tree holding our car on the cliff, they called someone they knew who figured out a way to get the car back on solid earth. Knowing I was shaken by this, they made the invitation and what a lovely evening it was. We traded stories, found connections between us due to their time in Canada and had a splendid evening. For me, the husband of the couple even brought out some of his whiskey collection for sampling. We walked back up the hill late that evening, heads swimming from the wine and whiskey and great conversation under the stars.

A year later looking back on this, and while so much has changed with a lot of that change being painful, something that has been consistent is this woman’s love for me. I’m already excited to plan our approaching Italian adventure together…. I expect there will be a lot of time in that upcoming trip like this one celebrating our last anniversary.